Bigamy trial against former FLDS president begins

Published 3:15 pm, Thursday, March 22, 2012

Opening arguments took place Thursday in the bigamy trial against a former lieutenant to polygamy sect leader Warren Jeffs.

Wendell Loy Nielsen, 71, faces three counts of third-degree felony bigamy charges which, if convicted, is punishable to two to 10 years in prison.

Judge Robert Moore, of Big Spring, is presiding over the case in the 142nd District Court.

Nielsen once served as a counselor to Jeffs and as a former president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Associated Press reported. FLDS teachings believe taking multiple wives brings glorification in heaven. The mainstream Mormon church rejected bigamy more than a century ago.

A remote West Texas compound, Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, was the site of a 2008 raid that led to indictments against Nielsen and 11 others.

Jeffs, the spiritual head of the church's roughly 10,000 followers, was convicted last year of sexual assault and sentenced to life in prison. Others indicted after the raid have received lengthy prison sentences.

This is the first of the bigamy cases to go to trial, officials said.

Prosecutors Thursday named three women Nielsen allegedly married in 2005 in addition to his legal wife. He was married to Linda Black in 1965 in Las Vegas, according to court testimony.

State prosecutors stated that while they were celestial and spiritual marriages, Nielsen took in each woman and she became part of his family unit and they co-habitated and lived together.

While the court cannot take the jurors to the compound, prosecutors stated that they would bring the ranch to the courtroom through a virtual tour of photographs and witness testimony.

Defense attorney David Botsford argued instead that the state of Texas cannot prove and has not proved that the evidence constituted a marriage under Texas law or that Nielsen is in violation of the Texas bigamy law.

The trial is expected to last until March 30, court officials said; it will start again this today at 9 a.m. on the 10th floor of the Midland County Courthouse.